Mend and Live
by schweinsty
Summary: James doesn't know how to deal with the Zelinsky case. Robbie helps. Gen, hint of Lewis/Hobson, rated for description of violent death.


A.N. I wrote this about a year ago, but I forgot to post it over here - just moving it from my lj.

Mend and Live

They make jokes and avoid the topic – not uncomfortably, and not carefully either, but they don't talk about it either way, not for some weeks. They work, as usual, through several stacks of paperwork after the case finishes, then through a backlog of paperwork from they'd set aside to work on the case, and, when they finish with all of that, they throw themselves headlong into a robbery inquiry with a zeal that makes Innocent raise an eyebrow.

James' mind stops wandering as much during work, and if it wanders when he's off he doesn't mention it to Robbie. He still shows up to work sometimes with dark rings under his eyes, guzzling coffee like his life depends on it, but his hands don't shake and his focus doesn't waver.

Things are mending, Robbie thinks. He says as much to Laura when they're downing a pint one weekend; she smiles wryly, but doesn't contradict him. James invites him to one of the band's shows at a coffee club; Robbie takes Laura, and they grab dinner after the show with the band, and James smiles his way through it, perfectly at ease, and doesn't brood for a minute.

Things are mending.

Then James and Robbie get called out to Oxford on a homicide; student – just a kid, really – stabbed through the stomach and stuffed in a trunk.

James walks into the attic where they found her, takes one long, hard look at the body, strolls calmly back out, and vomits into an evidence bag.

Robbie finds him out front – sitting half-in the car, lean legs spilling out the door, head resting on his knee.

"Hey," he says. He rests his hand on James' shoulder and leans in close. "You all right?"

James nods, forehead rubbing against his pants, and makes a vaguely miserable sound. "I'll be fine, sir. Just need to-" he gags, catches his breath, and continues, "Catch my breath."

Robbie sighs and holds out an evidence bag he'd snagged from one of the forensics team on his way over. James grabs hold of it, wraps his fist around it like he's hanging on for dear life. Robbie takes the other bag from James' grip and zips it shut.

"Go home," he says. He carries on before James can protest. "Get some rest, make yourself a cuppa. Murder'll still be here tomorrow."

"I'll be fine, sir, I just need a-"

"I can manage today, Sergeant." Robbie steps back and stretches, holding the bag of vomit carefully away from him. "Done so before, and I'll do better tomorrow if you're – err, well rested."

James capitulates with a muttered "Oh, well," and gags into the bag.

Robbie leaves him be and goes back inside, with a word to one of the uniforms to keep an eye on the sergeant.

It looks to be a long day.

James doesn't go home right away; he stops off at a café and nurses a cappuccino for a while; he goes there often, so they don't mind him sitting at a corner table and brooding. It's calming, usually, but it does little to soothe his mind today: all he can think of is the Zelinsky girl. She'd been all tangled up in that cistern, like the girl in the trunk today. Hair and clothes all sticky with blood and both their legs broken so they'd fit inside the cramped spaces.

The coffee doesn't do much, and James goes home early. It's quiet and empty and so full of dead, clean space that James thinks he'll suffocate, but there's nowhere else for him to go, so he sits at the kitchen table and does paperwork.

The murdered girl's boyfriend confesses – he panics after he sees the police – so Robbie stops by James' flat that evening with a bottle of scotch. He nurses a glass and listens as James gets drunk – tipsy, at least, if not completely soused, and more soppy and loose-tongued by the glass.

It all spills out eventually, in short bursts with long pauses in between; the Zelinsky girl, how she'd still been wearing her Hello Kitty shoes that fastened with Velcro straps, the way her mother had gone all pale but hadn't cried until James told her they'd found the killer.

Robbie listens to him and made appropriate noises, and, when James' eyes drift shut and he leans his head against the back of the couch, glass still clutched in his hand, Robbie loosens his tie, takes the glass and sets it on the table, and eases James' legs up to the couch.

James sleeps like the dead for several hours before the Zelinsky girl invades his dreams. He wakes (with fuzzy mouth and fuzzier head) to the smell of scrambled eggs and coffee.

"Morning, James," Robbie says from the kitchen. He points with a spatula at a glass of water and bottle of aspirin on the coffee table. "Up an' at 'em."

James groans and rubs his head. "Time's it?"

Robbie smiles – a smug grin that only someone who pointedly _does not_have a hangover can manage – and replies, too cheerily, "Time for breakfast. Clear your head up right quick, it will. My Lynn always says what-"

"Don't think anything could do that." James huffs out a breath. "Sir."

Robbie looks over, but James busily gulps down a couple aspirin.

After a minute, Robbie slips the eggs onto a dish and heads for the table. "It'll mend, in time."

James doesn't look up; he kneads his knuckles into his eyes and tries not to think of Ella Zelinsky. "And if it breaks again?"

Robbie pours two cups off coffee – black, the way Val took it – and sits down at the table. "Then we'll just mend it again, I expect."

James huffs, but he joins Robbie at the table, showers, goes to work, and joins Robbie and Laura for a pint afterwards, and if Ella Zelinsky's body keeps him up nights, still, he learns to live with it, and life goes on.


End file.
